Re: Monitoring RS-232

From: smarriott (smarriott@myrealbox.com)
Date: 07/26/02 

From: "smarriott" <smarriott@myrealbox.com>
To: Security-basics@securityfocus.com
Date: Fri, 26 Jul 2002 16:22:41 -0400

>I'm looking for a device that can monitor RS-232
>without interrupting the existing communications.
>To be exact, our customer has some cash registers
>connected to PC's over RS-232. I know there are
>software solutions to monitor the RS-232, but the
>problem is the cash software already has the COM
>port open so it won't run.

Not an expert here, but I remember using a software to monitor my modem's communications over the COM port. I guess it would qualify as the same situation: the dialing software already had the COM port open, but still I was able to do it. This ability could vary from OS to OS too, so maybe it worked for me because I was running a certain OS -- I think it was Win98, at the time.

The software I used was (one of the many with the name) PortMon, by good old SysInternals, and you can find it here: http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/portmon.shtml

Hope this helps.